Camera Flash photography

Flash photography is basically photography with using flash light. There
is a lot to play around with flash photography, however it mostly
required an external flash as there is much limitation with the internal
flash of camera. Hence, normally, external flash is one of the must have
equipment in photography.

For flash photography, first we need to understand on how external flash
function and its usage.

First, we need to know about "Flash Guide Number" (GN). GN basically
determines the power of the external flash, how bright the light and the
distance the flash can reach. The bigger the GN value means the more
powerful the flash. The calculation is based on the formula below,

Under this formula, if GN value is 40, it simply means that if we shoot
the photo with F4 aperture, then the effective distance covered by the
flash is 10 meter.

Some of the external flash available in the market nowadays.

Next, we take a look on the basic mode available in most of the external
flash in the market.
1. M mode:
This is the manual mode and all the setting is based on user demand. In
M mode, user has to decide on the GN value of the flash according to the
Aperture setting and the distance of the subject. For M mode, as long as
you have the value set correctly, then every photo taken next will have
the same power of flash light. However, manual setting is time consuming
and sometimes might be very troublesome and tricky.

2. A mode:
This is the automatic mode. In this mode, the external flash will meter
on the environment, and then it will set the flash filling according to
the aperture setting. A mode is almost similar to the M mode with the
exception that the metering and the GN value are set by the external
flash itself. User will only have to set on the aperture setting.

3. TTL mode:
TTL mode will depend on the exposure value metered by the camera. The
flash will release the moment the shutter is pressed. If the metering
system of the camera is good, it is best to use the external flash under
this mode.
TTL however suffer when the environment has vast differences in
brightness, either too bright or too dark. Under such situation, the
camera might have metered incorrectly to be underexposed or overexposed.
And without proper exposure compensation, the photo might be too bright
or too dark.

4. FP High Speed Sync:
In focal pane high speed sync mode, the external flash is able to
synchronize with the shutter speed of camera which is set to higher than
the normal flash sync speed. However, in this mode, as the external
flash flashes continuously, it causes the power to go lower.

Another thing to take note about external flash is the "angle of
incident". For this, the external flash will cover the angle of incident
according to the lens that is equipped. For most of the flash available
in the market, the coverage for angle of incident is mostly from 24mm to
85mm which cover most of the wide angle to mid range.
Some external flash has diffuser available whereby when it is pulled,
the angle of incident of that particular flash can reach to 16mm which
cover most of the wide angle lensí coverage.

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